WER: Global leprosy update, 2015: time for action, accountability and inclusion

The introduction of multidrug therapy (MDT) to leprosy programmes in the mid1980s resulted in a significant reduction in the prevalence of the disease, from 5.4 million cases at that time to a few hundred thousand currently. Noting the substantial decrease, the World Health Assembly in 1991 called for the global elimination of leprosy as a public health problem by the year 2000.1 Global leprosy strategies were built around this target until the elimination of leprosy as a public health problem was achieved in 2000 at global level and subsequently at national level by most countries in 2005. The 5-year global leprosy strategies since then have focused on the reduction of disease burden measured in terms of new cases with visible deformities or grade-2 disabilities (G2D).